Anime Discovery #10: Panty & Stocking w/Garterbelt

Hello my dear friends!! Are you lonely? Depressed? Angry at the world? Can’t get it up? Well, my friend, I got the treat for you and the answer is

GAINAX!!!!

Yes, Gainax helps you get your life together and keeps you upbeat for the time being. It’ll make give a deeper meaning to everything that involves music, movies, politics, science, history and sex. IT REALLY HELPS WITH SEX!! Yes, GAINAX, the only thing you need in the world…..ever.

(Caution: If taken too much GAINAX, you’ll experience multiple spasms, a drug-like trippy syndrome, spout out psychological babble in 40 minutes instead of the usual five, turns your brain into orange juice and apparently you will read this review of “Panty & Stocking w/Garter belt” made by this guy with the weird screen name and unknown personality.)

GAINAX is like the stoner dude of Japanese anime studios that can do whatever they want and still be considered one of the greatest anime studios and also the most influenced but what if they had influence from the Western World?

That is where Panty & Stocking w/Garterbelt comes in.

Panty & Stocking w/Garter belt has a lot of Western Animation influence in course of the style of animation (most of the time but sometimes go to its roots), character design and they even went the route of doing 2 11-minute segments in each episode and episode titles reference some Western pop culture property (Transformers, Death Race, Dawn of The Dead, Back to the Future, etc.) Mostly if FLCL had an orgy with Powerpuff Girls, Invader Zim & My Life as a Teenage Robot, this would be its spawn.

The storyline in here is that two angels (Panty & Stocking) needs to collect enough Heaven Coins to get back into Heaven with the help of afro-priest Garterbelt by defeating the ghosts in Daten City and they do explode in a cheap Godzilla-esque kind of way. But also happens to get side-tracked by two demon girls Scanty & Knee socks (seen later in the series) and bitchiness does ensue between the two sets of sisters.

Other characters include Chuck, the pet that does indeed look like Gir from Invader Zim and yes, I find Chuck annoying as hell and completely useless in this series and Brief, the butt monkey that has a crush of Panty, despite her whoring herself around every guy she finds and bone. Mainly that is Panty’s trait and Stocking……..is f***ing weird. Her trait is that she wolfs down any sweets she can find but she is the most level-headed sister of the duo (which was needed). Garterbelt is the strangest character in the show and I think they had gotten the whole priest with homosexual tendencies reference.

PSG has a large amount of nonsensical surroundings and it doesn’t take itself that seriously and it can get too crazy……..and yet it’s an okay show. I am actually glad that it was marketed as not taken too seriously but sometimes some anime that does market itself as a serious anime but when the final product arrives, it fails to do its job, considering I have watched some anime that have f**ked up its premise. But if it has too much nonsense, it will turn off some people and by that, I mean both anime and non-anime fans.

As you may know, the show has already been reviewed by EriksBlue & Donwun on DREAMCAST Ep. 13 and yes, I do respect their opinions and thoughts of the show and hope to keep it interesting and different but here’s my opinion (or FINAL VERDICT): Out of all the GAINAX shows, FLCL, this is not. Gurren Lagann, not that either but it didn’t turn my brain into fresh-squeezed orange juice like Evangelion. It can turn me on and off at the same time and it did its job to entertain me despite some flaws. The animation is very daring but also lazy at a few times and I did like the music of the show, especially the ending theme “Fallen Angel” and “Fly Away”, the insert song where the girls goes into magical girl mode. Unfortunately, some of the characters might get annoying to you like Panty’s a bitch, Stocking’s a sugar crack addict, Garter belt is, well, strange but then again, he is the one to straightened the girls out, I said enough about Chuck but Brief is also as annoying and useless as Chuck but if a Season 2 does get made, I might give that a shot.

My final score:

7.5/10

Tyrocasts Rating: Watchable

…..and that’s all I wrote.

‘til then, I’m MAK2.0 aka HybridMedia, bringing all the elements (or panty, stocking, garter belt, corset, or anything named after any underwear) in one format (I’m keeping that silent.)